


Comparative Physiology

by Rubynye



Category: Star Trek XI
Genre: Aliens Made Them Do It, Bondage, M/M, Mentor-Student, One of My Favorites, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-10
Updated: 2010-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-06 02:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So you are <b>not</b> a breeding pair?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comparative Physiology

**Author's Note:**

> Acknowledgements: [](http://lomedet.livejournal.com/profile)[**lomedet**](http://lomedet.livejournal.com/), [](http://leftarrow.livejournal.com/profile)[**leftarrow**](http://leftarrow.livejournal.com/), and [](http://possibly-thrice.livejournal.com/profile)[**possibly_thrice**](http://possibly-thrice.livejournal.com/); the name of Pike's training ship is borrowed with gratitude from [](http://boosette.livejournal.com/profile)[**boosette**](http://boosette.livejournal.com/), specifically her lovely "[Towns Unstormed and Battles Yet to Come](http://boosette.livejournal.com/766774.html)".   
> Summary/Prompt: "[Kirk/Pike aliens made them do it](http://community.livejournal.com/st_xi_kink/9715.html?thread=28959987#t28959987)". There's also [another, lengthier fill](http://community.livejournal.com/st_xi_kink/9715.html?thread=29700595#t29700595) for the same prompt, by [](http://kayliemalinza.livejournal.com/profile)[**kayliemalinza**](http://kayliemalinza.livejournal.com/), which is wonderfully worth reading.  
> Content Advisory: Curious aliens, bondage (kinda), attempted intoxication, nudity, levity, slash.

Title: Comparative Physiology  
Fandom: Star Trek XI  
Rating: Light R  
Pairing: Cadet Kirk / Captain Pike  
_Disclaimer:_ Except for the Chertians, none of these characters belong to me.

"So you are _not_ a breeding pair?" chirrups the foremost Chertian, waggling one shiny blue-and-black forelimb in a confused manner. From the corner of his eye, Captain Pike of the _USS Qín Jiŭshào_ sees Lieutenant nee Cadet Kirk shimmying, not in struggle against the overhead manacles but because Jim's _laughing_, his generous mouth shut tightly over barely stifled merriment.

Pike lifts his chin, ignores Kirk's ridiculousness, and addresses their puzzled captor. "No, we're not, but we'll be happy to tell you all about Terran practices if you release us and return our uniforms and gear."

The Chertian shuffles its four hindlegs in ambiguous acknowledgement and steps back to confer with its three smaller companions. Pike sighs and makes himself focus. It could be worse, after all. He and Kirk are uninjured, they haven't been beaten or tortured or even held long enough to get seriously hungry. They were _merely_ stunned, stripped naked (at which Kirk shows an annoying lack of discomfort), and manacled to a hard earthen wall, their arms stretched up so they're balanced on the balls of their feet. Their clothes and equipment are probably being dissected while these curious aliens interrogate them; the Chertians haven't asked for military secrets or technology, just demonstrations of Terran behavior. Including mating. Of course.

It was _supposed_ to be a simple training cruise, a field trip of a survey mission. Pike twists his wrists inside the sweat-slick metal bands and wishes he could pinch the bridge of his nose. Kirk quivers again, and Pike fights down an obscure, irrational sense that this whole side excursion is Jim's fault for saying "That looks interesting" and haring westwards off the path. At least Kirk's controlled himself enough to not display arousal. Just not enough to not _laugh_.

The Chertian spokesbeing returns with forelimbs outstretched, raising itself almost to Pike's chest height as it reaches towards him. Pike inhales warily, flattening himself away from the hooked forefeet with their eight independently mobile claws. Kirk stiffens, all laughter gone, inhaling to say something brave and stupid.

Pike shakes his head once, and Jim simmers down. Looking the Chertian in its bulbous yellow lower eyes, he reminds it, "You said you would not harm us."

"That is not our purpose." The Chertian's upper eyes whirl, faceted and iridescent, its sixteen claws flick through Pike's chest hair almost as lightly as petting fingertips. "Our purpose is to understand."

"We will tell you whatever you want to know." They're still claws, and this is getting uncomfortably close to actual manhandling of a more viscerally personal kind than mere restraints. "As I have asked, simply release us and return our belongings."

"Once we understand." The Chertian's claws scrape ticklishly up Pike's sides, and he doesn't twist and wiggle like Kirk would, but it's a near thing. Not that he likely could, but if asked he'll put it down to maintaining his dignity. "You two specimens are so similar, yet rather different." It curls its claws under but for one, extended in a didactic pointing gesture that's remarkably, disturbingly familiar. "You have the same dermal tint of your internal circulatory fluid, which, with your shared lack of pigmentation, indicates you share a Terran subtype, but you have different pelt tints and distributions." The Chertian spokesbeing points at Kirk. "That one bears pelt only on the extreme anterior and at the apexes of limbs, but yours is also scattered along your ventral thorax and lower limbs." It ruffles Pike's hair, and Kirk squirms with laughter again.

"All that is true." Pike feels somewhat dissected, but this could be going far worse and much more bloodily. "But as I said --"

The Chertian waves both forelimbs, crossing and then splayed again, and Pike pauses before wondering if that really was meant as a sign for him to be quiet. It seems to have been, because it continues, "The true puzzle is that, as you are the same size, we know you are the same age." It traces the lines on his face, from nose to jaw on either side. "And these rostrolabial creases indicate sex hormone exposure, do they not? Male, to specify?"

Eyes squeezed shut, Kirk bounces on his toes. Pike _really_ wishes he could pinch the bridge of his nose. "Actually, these -- creases, as you call them, are signs of age. Once Terrans reach physical maturity we cease to gain height." Pike considers providing the obvious piece of missed information, but he'd really rather not discuss his tackle with a curious alien if he doesn't actually need to.

The Chertian spokesbeing skitters back a meter or so, faceted eyes whirling faster, and seems to look them both over. One of its companions (aides? juniors? offspring?) steps up and confers with the spokesbeing for some time, its forelimbs weaving a complex supplemental pattern until the spokesbeing's faceted upper eyes abruptly stop whirling and pulse in and out, which is a bit alarming. The companion's faceted eyes pulse in the same pattern as it steps back and the spokesbeing steps forward again.

"My Tertiary is performing a preliminary morphological analysis," it tells Pike, "and points out that I have overlooked the interference patterns in your irises." Kirk makes some kind of muffled noise. "They are indeed similar enough to be of the same functional type, so you are not a breeding pair after all."

Pike is decades too old to roll his eyes, no matter what color they are, and four meters too far away to kick Kirk. "As I have told you more than once. Now, if you could kindly return out uniforms and gear and let us go...?"

"So you cannot demonstrate _procreative_ mating," the spokesbeing continues as if Pike hasn't spoken, "but does your species mate only for procreation? That does not match our records." Kirk tips his head back and openly snickers. "Perhaps you might demonstrate non-procreative mating for us."

Pike pushes down a surge of annoyance, which really should be larger, with several deep breaths. He's about to explain that they have _cultural taboos_ against that, to say the least, when the spokesbeing adds, "You are fatigued. I will question your Secondary."

Pike stands up straighter in his bonds, trying to look awake and energetic. Letting them ask Kirk about sex would be a really bad idea, not least because the answers would probably exceed what most humanoids could live up to. "I am the leader, so your questions are properly addressed to me."

"True, but you should have a rest." Without further ado, the Chertian spokesbeing skitters over.

"Kirk," Pike calls warningly.

"Of course, sir." Jim glances at him with an honest smile and a guileless gleam in his eyes.

That's when Pike really worries. He tries to pin Kirk with a good strong glare, but Jim just smiles charmingly -- _charmingly_, God help Pike -- at the Chertian. "Hi, there," he says as if this were a sim he didn't care about passing, "how can I help you?"

"Did you follow the discussion between your Primary and myself?" The Chertian ruffles Jim's hair as it asks.

"Oh, yes. It was fascinating." Jim drops his head, tucking in his chin, and after staring in bogglement for a moment Pike realizes, with a sense of deep foreboding, that Jim is trying to give the Chertian better access.

"Your pelt is an interesting texture." The Chertian keeps ruffling his hair. "Are you of an age to practice Terran mating?"

Kirk's laugh is bright and clear and completely inappropriate, and Pike has to force the corner of his mouth not to twitch upwards. "I am. I do..." Kirk looks sideways at Pike, and there's no innocence in the glittering blue of his eyes. "On occasion."

"I am sufficiently rested," Pike calls, before this can get any more out of hand.

Kirk hoists an eyebrow, and the Chertian spokesbeing ignores Pike. "Was this to generate offspring?"

"No-oh." Jim's chuckle breaks the word into two syllables. "No, all my mating's been non-procreative. I definitely hope, anyway."

"Then you and your Primary are qualified to demonstrate non-procreative mating for us!" The Chertian sounds _excited_, though that might be Pike anthropomorphizing. Or maybe it's just a sentient insectoid pervert.

"Well, ah." Kirk glances over at Pike again, and his waggling eyebrows somehow convey as clearly as telepathy the answer he'd prefer to give. Rather than have to consider his own self-control, Pike looks away from Jim's smooth smiling face, from the solid lines of his naked form dangling from those manacles, and concentrates on the discomfort of his own bonds and the ridiculousness, and untenable nature, of the situation. "We really don't... taboos? Yeah. We kind of have cultural taboos against that kind of thing between superiors and inferiors." Pike glances up in plausibly deniable surprise, and Kirk's eyes radiate the conviction that some rules were made to be broken.

And some were made to be kept, Pike reminds himself as he nods, hoping Kirk takes it as confirmation of what he said rather than what he didn't say. The Chertian stops petting Kirk, finally, and rigid black lids flick up over its yellow lower eyes. "Cultural taboos mutate under the influence of intoxicants," it says. "That is a constant of sentient races." It turns, chirping and clacking something to its three aides, and they skitter away in different directions.

So it's going to get them high. This just gets better and better. "Can you be sure whatever substance you intend as an intoxicant will be safe for us?" Pike asks. Instead of just saying no, he does notice, and thinks a wry smile at himself.

"We will calculate the dose carefully," the Chertian assures him, uncovering its yellow eyes as the faceted ones spin faster, and Kirk makes a strangled noise that is unfortunately not being caused by Pike's hands around his throat.

One of the three aides returns with a round, narrow-necked container. All that asking "Wait, what is that?" gets Pike is a mouthful of what tastes like heavily diluted ethanol, as the aide sprays him, Kirk, and the spokesbeing liberally with an aqueous solution. It's too dilute to have much effect unless they drink a gallon each, let alone simply being doused in it. Feeling the hair on his forehead curling in the slightly alcoholic dampness, Pike watches Kirk laugh, body streaming with liquid, eyes closed and ears dripping. "Quiet, Lieutenant," he warns. Kirk firms up his spine and his jaw, but his huge grin and shuddering chest are more than sufficient merriment.

The Chertian spokesbeing flicks solution off each individual limb. "I am unsurprised this does not act on my physiology," it says. "It was tailored to yours." Its other aides clamber up the wall to unlatch the manacles, and Pike drops gratefully onto his own two feet. "So, please demonstrate, while we have your belongings prepared." It steps back, and its aides sweep the terminal two joints of their forelegs over its body to wipe it dry.

Pike looks at Kirk, who stops rubbing his own wrists and reaches for Pike's. "Are you feeling any effects, intoxication or an allergic reaction?"

Jim rolls his eyes. "You sound like our friend over there." He rubs circles with his thumbs over the sore backs of Pike's wrists, a heady scent rising off his wet skin. "So, do we run for it?"

Naked, with no way to determine where the base camp is from here. Pike shakes his head slowly, and watches Jim's spreading grin with too little trepidation and too much answering heat. Out loud he says, "We really should."

"Yeah, with no clothes and no idea where we are." Jim steps closer, eyebrows dancing. "Also, we're _obviously_ intoxicated."

"Is that why we smell like a brewery?" Pike already knows the answer, but he lets Jim come to him, just to be sure.

"Actually, you smell like a really good night." Jim steps right up to Pike, their damp chests brushing each other, their cheeks brushing together, Jim's turgid swell against his thigh mirroring the arousal he's stopped fighting. "What do you think, is a blowjob non-procreative enough?"

"Are you offering?" Pike manages to say instead of _yes, please_, and the alien audience is hushed as they watch, he can almost ignore them. He breathes, and feels Kirk breathe, and makes a mental note to never take Jim on another training mission. He's too much trouble, and far too much fun. "I gather they thought you were the female."

Jim's laugh vibrates, soft and tantalizing, into Pike's ear. "I'm secure in my masculinity," he says as he slides to his knees, brushing his mouth over Pike's heart on the way down.


End file.
